realcool
Member
I will say one nice thing about Cliffhangar Studios: props to them for their authenticity.
Bloomberg: Why EA Canceled a New ‘Black Panther’ Video Game - 4 Years in Pre-Production - Game Had Multiple Heroes + Expanded Nemesis System
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
diffusionx
Gold Member
it was sarcasm.
March Climber
Member
I know it was sarcasm, I'm saying it's neither one nor the other 100% of the time.
Kadve
Member
Bioware mostly ruined themselves though. If you speak of Anthem. It was actually one of the few studios that EA was very hands-off with (For better or worse, if you read up on development history of said game).
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Revolutionary
Member
Nah they were using the legally distinct Adversary System
Mister Wolf
Member
Multiple heroes. Should have just focused on T'Challa, the Black Panther.
laynelane
Member
Yep, I remember one of the employees of that studio proudly talking about how she doesn't hire white people (on a previous project) - something about microaggressions and being uncomfortable around people who don't look like her iirc. She also admitted to being racist on twitter although that ended up being deleted, of course. She kept her job even after all that came out, but things have begun to shift a little now. Unsurprisingly, having nothing concrete to show after all this time and antagonizing customers isn't something any company will want to keep paying for.
kunonabi
Member
Nah, at some point, somebody, somewhere will care about Shuri.
Mister Wolf
Member
And now they don't have a game at all.
Lunarorbit
Member
Fuck man, Chadwick was so good as black panther. He could have carried a lot of the acting heft left behind after end game.Actually develop a game?
I don't give 2 fucks about the new avengers cast. I know they wanna lean into a new anti hero cast but budget black widow, some Russian capt America, and bucky isn't doing it for me. It's not even superhero fatigue it's just these movies and shows suck.
Honey Bunny
Member
Maybe hiring the best qualified developers wouldve helped
yazenov
Member
StueyDuck
Member
Yeah, so 4 years of pre-production with nothing to show and "toxic work environment" at Build a Rocket Boy are more linked than people would like to believe.
The young'uns these days don't want to work; they'd rather grow their social media account, have their own podcasts and have fancy lunches while putting in min effort at their jobs.
The young'uns these days don't want to work; they'd rather grow their social media account, have their own podcasts and have fancy lunches while putting in min effort at their jobs.
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Mercenary09
Member
It's funny you go on the Era thread for this and it's just full of morons saying screw EA this and that. Dumbasses, this was in pre-production for 4 years. Find another job out there that is going to keep you employed after wasting 4 years and not getting anything done. Probably too busy trying to figure out how to get their woke ideas into the game.
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Goalus
Member
Spot on.
Strange that this isn't mentioned in the article.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Crazy, right. It's no wonder EA pulled the plug.
PlayStaytion
Member
I can't stop thinking and deny the fact that the whole hobby is fake and disingenuous, we've barely seen any constant patterns that happens continuously to successful IPs but when they do, it happens miraculously.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Grift for 4 years worth of salary with zero output. Add in some severance pay to get rid of them and it's like hitting the lottery. Just imagine working at a company and getting paid for 4 years + sev pay off and had nothing to show.
Situations like this the employees should pay back the company. It's basically stealing if they produced nada. Funny thing is if it's been 4 years of zilch, a final game would probably take 7+ years. For a superhero game. lol
Situations like this the employees should pay back the company. It's basically stealing if they produced nada. Funny thing is if it's been 4 years of zilch, a final game would probably take 7+ years. For a superhero game. lol
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JohnnyTropics
Member
Not reading any post in here, but I can tell you the real reason is because the market has an unsustainably high level of Wakanda fatigue.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Cliffhanger was formed 4 years ago and BP is their first game. Studio formed right at the height of covid, tech/gaming sales shooting up, and DEI politics on steroids. On paper, looks like a great strategy to pump out a BP game with a loudmouth employee on social media to boot.
If the BP game came out in 2021, it would be a giant seller and fit societal trends. Too bad for EA, fast forward to 2025 and nobody cares anymore and it turns out the game barely progressed in development anyway. So instead of it being ready to launch soon and flopping, might as well cut the cord now.
Lesson learned for EA and all the other game and movie studios. Never jump on trends and hire dumbasses with political slants. Might had worked in 2020 and 2021, but not now. Starting in late 2023 or 2024 was the worst time to release products made from DEI people with their skews affecting the product. And 2025 hits even harder.
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Angry_Megalodon
Member
I understand this is ironic. No legacy media will tell you the obvious. They will rather say that developments costs are high and we have to pay MORE for slop.
Heart_Attack
Member
Is there actually demand for a Black Panther game?....
kunonabi
Member
I mean the industry certainly thought so at least since they were attempting to pop out two of them.
drotahorror
Member
No surprise based on everything we've heard from who ran the company.
Maybe when they started. Some thought woke was the new normal (because they believed they could force that upon society) so they went all in on it. Turns out it was just another manufactured fad which people soon got sick of.
This is just another symptom of a more general problem of game development times being ridiculously long now: the market/world can change a huge amount if you're going to take 5+ years to make a game, both in terms of social attitudes and in terms of gaming trends.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I mean .. you could ask if there was a demand for Batman games before Arkham Asylum.
It all would have depended on how the final product would have shaped out.
Which we'll never know, in this case.
The Cockatrice
I'm retarded?
Good thigns never see the light of day, in this case the nemesis system.
Mister Wolf
Member
A Black Panther game of the same quality as the Arkham and Shadow Of Mordor games would have definitely sold well.
DeafTourette
Perpetually Offended
The plan in the movies originally was to center around BP.... Then Chadwick died and... You know the rest.
ByWatterson
Member
Gentle reminder that the repetitive Nemesis system low-key sucked and that's why it's not being used much or imitated.
Lunarorbit
Member
Imagine if they had been able to get it out before the wolverine game too. Both melee based 3rd person open world fighters might have been competing with each other but BP can be a huge property. Sounds like it could been a decent superhero game
kevboard
Member
it very likely got cancelled because noone at the team had even remotely a game design concept figured out.
I feel like that's an issue that is plaguing the AAA industry more and more. you either have devs failing to come up with a concept, or you have devs just copying the generic AAA shit that's already out there.
on top of that devs teams are bloated beyond reason, which leads to a lack of focus and almost necessitates generic design, since it's easier to organise massive teams, if what you're doing is super simple to get actoss to the whole team and doesn't need much iterating to get right.
they would probably have just yet again copied the Batman freeflow combat, there would have been 4 special attack slots that you access by holding down a shoulder button and hit ABXY, you'd probably be able to crawl up walls, and every mission would be you following a yellow marker on your screen and press buttons to context sensitively interact with random stuff, while systemic game mechanic use would be kept to a minimum as to not overstimulate casuals.
and I bet Insomniac's Wolverine will turn out exactly like this as well.
no interesting mechanics, no interesting design choices, barely any systemic mechanics being used, exteme reliance in context sensetive button prompts, yellow mission marker, Batman combat.
I feel like that's an issue that is plaguing the AAA industry more and more. you either have devs failing to come up with a concept, or you have devs just copying the generic AAA shit that's already out there.
on top of that devs teams are bloated beyond reason, which leads to a lack of focus and almost necessitates generic design, since it's easier to organise massive teams, if what you're doing is super simple to get actoss to the whole team and doesn't need much iterating to get right.
they would probably have just yet again copied the Batman freeflow combat, there would have been 4 special attack slots that you access by holding down a shoulder button and hit ABXY, you'd probably be able to crawl up walls, and every mission would be you following a yellow marker on your screen and press buttons to context sensitively interact with random stuff, while systemic game mechanic use would be kept to a minimum as to not overstimulate casuals.
and I bet Insomniac's Wolverine will turn out exactly like this as well.
no interesting mechanics, no interesting design choices, barely any systemic mechanics being used, exteme reliance in context sensetive button prompts, yellow mission marker, Batman combat.
Fbh
Member
I wouldn't put all young people in the same bag.
Expedition 33 was made by a bunch of young people too, many of them working on their first proper game, and it turned out great.
It's about the quality of talent you hire and the priorities at the company. When you hire people like this though, it's not surprising things don't move along
Mister Wolf
Member
Too bad they prioritized gender, race, ideologies, and activism over actual game development skills. I was honestly looking forward to this IP getting a AAA game. Hopefully that game with Cap and Black Panther turns out to be a banger.
StueyDuck
Member
you can't put a blanket over everyone obviously, but from both personal experience and people i've had to hire and interview as well as older voices in certain industries, there is definitely a rather large swath of young educated employees not being functional at their day to day duties.